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Mac 101: Checking in on CUPS
More Mac 101, tips and tricks for new Mac users. Ever wonder how your documents go from screen pixels to paper printouts? CUPS is the open source printing system that powers Mac OS X output, built for a variety of UNIX systems and now developed (or at least assimilated) by Apple. It provides print services by creating a representation of the page contents, and converting that data into formats that any number of printers understand. OS X applications don't need to know the printer specifics. All they have to provide is a page description, which they pass along to the CUPS server. The server takes over from there and sends the document data to the active printer. You can access your CUPS-based printers via a Web administration page, if the mood strikes you. It's easy; point your Web browser to http://127.0.0.1:631/printers. From there, you'll be able to check print queues, show completed print jobs, and more. You'll also be able to print a test page, pause the print queue, cancel all jobs, and set the default printer -- among other maintenance and administrative tasks. Most of the things you'd do there are also manageable via System Preferences, but it's nice to know what's underneath.
MeeGo 1.0 demoed on MSI netbook, looks shockingly stupendous (video)
You've already watched pre-release versions of MeeGo fly around on a number of netbooks, but if you're still wondering if it's worth your while to install v1.0 on your own machine, you owe it to yourself to have a look at the video posted after the break. The fine folks over at Liliputing have installed the fresh-out-of-the-lab operating system onto their MSI netbook in order to showcase some of the features, and frankly, we're duly impressed by what we're seeing. It's clearly light on its feet, with an Expose-like shifting of screens happening at speeds which we previously only dreamed of seeing on an Atom-based rig. We can't say the rest of the world is really ready to ditch Windows 7 for something as niche as this, but judging by this vid, you should probably give it a whirl. What's to lose, right? P.S. - Phoronix was able to run the new OS through the benchmark gauntlet, and it certainly showed up Ubuntu. [Thanks, Rafael]
Pandora handheld now shipping: first mass-produced unit unboxed, world somehow survives
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gadgets/Pandora_handheld_now_shipping'; The open-source Pandora handheld has had a long and arduous time to market, but the days of delay are apparently at an end. You gaze upon the very first Pandora off the assembly line -- the fruit of over two years labor -- and project leaders are presently shipping out the rest of the first completed batch, with scores if not hundreds already on the way. GP32X forum mod X68000 got this unit for his help in construction, which means you can see Pandora's box literally opened at our source link (har har). Puns not your thing? Spot a batch of handhelds at the soldering station instead, right after the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Android 2.2 coming to Nexus One, open source community 'in the coming weeks'
Why, thanks Google! Just a day after wrapping up a rather monumental Google I/O event in Northern California, the company's official show Twitter account has belted out a tidbit that just about every attendee was wondering about. According to the outfit, Android 2.2 (yeah, that's Froyo for the inexperienced) will be "made available to OEMs and the open source community in the coming weeks," and it'll be hitting up the HTC-built Nexus One in the "next few weeks." That's music to our ears, and if you're unsure what kind of impact this will have on your own life, feel free to take a deep dive into this right here. [Thanks, Alex]
Qbo, the open source robot, gets detailed, looks cute
It's the future and we're still waiting for our personal jetpacks, but it looks like robot helpers in every home are closer than ever, with thecorpra's Qbo getting us ever closer. Okay, so without arms he's unlikely to be much of a help around the house, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't make a useful addition to your abode. He's peppered with sensors of various types, has stereo high-def webcam eyes, microphone ears, and even an LED mouth. Inside his belly rests a Mini-ITX motherboard festooned with WiFi, Bluetooth, an Intel Atom processor and NVIDIA Ion graphics, all running some flavor of Linux. Yes, that means he could stream YouTube videos in HD... if only he had the appropriate outputs. There's no mention of price or availability at this point but something tells us he won't be free as in beer. Full picture with specs after the break.
Mad musician makes a minimalist maze on his monome (video)
What do you do when you're sick of making music on your instruments? You hack them to play video games, apparently. YouTube user silverspaceship (real name Sean) worked up some code he calls monomAZe 3D, enabling you to take a journey into a very old-school 3D maze on your two fifty six edition monome, which (if you hadn't guessed) features a grid of 256 light up buttons. The intent of the device is making trippy music (such as the soundtrack to this video), but apparently it can also take you on a trip, which is mighty neat in our book. Cost of entry? About $1,400 for the two fifty six, if you can find one, but at least the source code is free.
Data Robotics gives Drobo FS full Time Machine compatibility
When Data Robotics announced the Drobo FS last month, one common complaint among potential buyers was that it doesn't offer native support for doing networked Time Machine backups. Just connecting a Drobo FS to a network of Macs could cause issues for Time Machine backups, since the built-in backup feature of Mac OS X tends to consume every last morsel of space it can and even the huge capacity of the Drobo FS could be chewed up quickly. Data Robotics announced today that the Drobo FS now supports network-based Time Machine backups. The company shipped a new version of Drobo Dashboard for the FS allowing the creation of shares for Time Machine use. In Dashboard v1.7.2, there's now a control to enable Time Machine support on a Drobo array, then set a maximum size for the share so that the backup files don't take over all of the space on the device. The company has released the code that they wrote to specify volume sizes into the Open Source Community. The Netatalk project, hosted on SourceForge, provides a Unix/Linux daemon that is available to all Linux developers and any other vendors who sell to Mac OS X users.
Ryzom patch adds new boss, occupations
Yumeroh, Community Liaison for the science-fantasy MMORPG known as Ryzom, writes in to tell us about the upcoming 1.9.0 content patch. The game, which recently made headlines when the developers decided to make the source code and art assets freely available under the open source GNU Affero General Public License, continues to update and expand the commercial client as a service to existing customers. The new content patch will introduce a marauder boss called Dante the Teaser, as well as a new game mechanic called Occupations. Occupations bring a bit of structure to the game's traditional sandbox skill-building system, and were designed to further roleplay opportunities, introduce new player goals, and allow for progression via regenerative items. Players will need to perform collection and processing tasks specific to each of the new occupations (examples of which include Butcher, Magnetic Cartographer, and Florist) in order to obtain and progress with the new regenerative items. The items then act as temporary stat boosters when consumed. You can check out all the details on the official forums.
Google launches open WebM web video format based on VP8 (update: hardware partners and Microsoft statement)
Google's plan to open-source the VP8 video codec it acquired when it purchased a company called On2 hasn't exactly been a secret, and the company's finally made it official today as part of a new format called WebM. The WebM container is based on Matroska, with VP8 video and Ogg Vorbis audio streams packed inside -- Google says the format is efficient enough to support playback on lower-power devices like netbooks, tablets, and handhelds, while the encoding profiles are simple enough to limit complexity when you're trying to create WebM files. WebM is open-sourced and licensed royalty-free under a BSD-style license, so all those H.264 patent licensing concerns shouldn't be an issue -- and as you'd expect, Mozilla is supporting WebM right off the bat, with support in Firefox nightly builds as of today. Chromium nightlies will also support WebM as of today, with Chrome early access builds getting support on May 24 -- and Opera is listed as "coming soon." Google's also going to be supporting the format as an option for YouTube playback, so that should drive adoption in a big way -- if you're running these latest Firefox or Chromium nightlies you can actually try it out now. The big question, of course, is whether Apple and Microsoft will roll WebM support into Safari and IE and onto their mobile platforms. We'll see -- Google definitely has the ability to push a format into the mainstream. Update: Industry support announced at I/O -- including Adobe, who'll be rolling VP8 support into Flash Player. Take note of the hardware partners, though: AMD, ARM, Broadcom, Freescale, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and TI, among others. Missing in action? Intel. Update 2: The always-reliable Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet says she's heard Microsoft will be supporting WebM in IE9. That's a big deal if it's true, but we'll have to wait for confirmation -- IE9 isn't due out for a year, so a lot can change in the meantime. Fingers crossed. Update 3: Microsoft's made an official statement on its blog -- while the company is "all in" with HTML5, IE9 will only come with H.264 installed be default due to technical and IP concerns. HTML5 / VP8 playback will be supported, but users will have to download and install the codec separately, which doesn't bode well for widespread adoption. Here's the money quote: In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video as well as VP8 video when the user has installed a VP8 codec on Windows. [Thanks, Sean]
Students program Human Tetris into 8-bit microcontroller, give away schematics for free (video)
Sure, Project Natal is the hotness and a little bird tells us PlayStation Move is pretty bodacious, but you don't have to buy a fancy game console to sooth your motion-tracking blues. When students at Cornell University wanted to play Human Tetris (and ace a final project to boot), they taught a 20Mhz, 8-bit microcontroller how to follow their moves. Combined with an NTSC camera, the resulting system can display a 39 x 60 pixel space at 24 frames per second, apparently enough to slot your body into some grooves -- and as you'll see in videos after the break, it plays a mean game of Breakout, too. Full codebase and plans to build your own at the source link. Eat your heart out, geeks.
The Daily Grind: What game would you like to see go open source?
For a game long known for its emphasis on player-created content, mods, and even skills, the big Ryzom announcement perhaps should have been expected. But the revelation that the game was going into the murky waters of open source, albeit with a few omissions such as height maps and sound files, is a far-reaching one for almost any game not wholly built around user generation (a la Second Life). And it naturally leads to the question: what other games would be nice to have access to from the source code up. It opens a huge number of doors, everything from private servers to full-on rewrites of the game as a single-player experience. For knowledgable coders, it turns every single patch and design decision into something that can be modified by the players. The breadth of options is almost overwhelming. Of course, Ryzom is a niche title with a strong emphasis on these kinds of innovations, so in a way it's to be expected. But it's the closest we've seen to a mainstream game going this route -- so what would you like to see? An older game that could benefit from the publicity? A newer game you feel could be improved? Or a sadly-cancelled game whose source code could be used as a resurrection?
Ryzom is now open source
The people behind Ryzom have been hinting for days that something big was on the way, leaving players speculating about what it could be. There were a lot of guesses flying around out there, but it's safe to say nobody saw this coming: Ryzom is now open source. The introduction of Ryzom Core came this morning, which means that all source code and artistic assets are out there for the world. That's right, you can now create your very own Atys with Ryzom's blessing and completely free of charge. The game itself is still up and running -- this is an addition rather than a replacement, so Ryzom fans can rest assured that their game isn't going anywhere. This development is certain to leave many wondering how this works, what it means, and of course why the decision was made. The Ryzom team handled as much of that as they could preemptively, setting up a FAQ covering quite a bit of ground. The Free Software Foundation got in on the act as well by further explaining what this means and how it all works.
Screenshots emerge of Steam Linux client, BeOS wonders if it's next
There's some old adage referring to smoke and fire meant to explain this phenomenon, but frankly, we're too focused on the promise of the future to go and look it up. Merely weeks after the Steam for Mac beta proved that Linux support may be in the works, along comes this: two glorious screenshots proving as much. 'Course, nothing much about this situation has changed, but having pictorial evidence that a Steam client exists in some stage for Linux is a boon for hopefuls. A Phoronix reader managed to snag a capture of the client working its magic early on, and while it's pretty obvious that it's not ready for primetime, we're just stoked to see that there's legitimate reason to believe such an app is on the way. Hang tight, Penguin Nation -- your Steam should be just about the bend.
Intel gives MeeGo 1.0 its first public performance (video)
Here we go open source fans, the first debut of MeeGo 1.0 running on Intel silicon -- an Acer Aspire One netbook (the 532h, from the looks of it) with a Pinetrail processor to be precise -- sporting a simplified UI that looks to have inherited far more Moblin DNA than Maemo. You've got tasks, appointments, most-used apps, and a quick-launch bar all up front. We're also seeing 3D gaming support; Zones, Applications, People, Internet, Media and Settings tabs; and real-time social networking integration for Twitter, Facebook, and instant messaging with task bar alerts. Can't wait to see how the MeeGo user experience translates to a smaller, say, 4.8-inch Moorestown device or the TI OMAP-based followup to the Nokia N900 later this year. Until then, check the video after the break. Update: Second video added showing MeeGo running on a TV, an unidentified AAVA Moorestown-based smartphone (see after the break), and digital coupon machine. It's worth mentioning that this is Intel's take on the MeeGo UI and Nokia's will likely look much different. [Thanks, Atlantian, pdexter]
Dashboard iPad app rejected by Apple, made open source instead
So you spend hours and hours toiling away on an app that adds some much-needed Dashboard-like functionality to the iPad (sort of, more on that later) only to have it rejected by Apple -- what do you do? If you're Hongrich, developer of the slightly problematically-named "Dashboard" app, you make it open source. Of course, you'll have to be a developer yourself to actually try out the app, and it's not exactly the full-fledged Dashboard that many have been hoping for, but rather a standalone app that simply lets you run and arrange widgets however you like. Still, it's definitely a start. Head on past the break for a demo video, and hit up the source link to download it yourself.
University of Washington's Prefab tool promises to 'unlock the desktop'
The University of Washington may be overstating things a just a tad with a headline like "what if all software was open source," but the so-called "Prefab" software tool developed by some researchers at the university does indeed manage to pull of some fairly impressive tricks. The short of it is that the tool promises to you let you (or developers) modify any application without actually modifying it. To do that, the software constantly looks for easily identifiable elements of an application (dialog boxes, scroll bars, buttons, etc.) and then "alters their behavior" by effectively taking over your display, leaving the actual program running in the background and displaying the augmented version instead. According to the researchers, the possibilities from there on out are virtually endless, and include things like adding iTunes buttons to your Word toolbar and tweaking Photoshop to display previews for a whole range of effects at once. Head on past the break for a quick demo video, and look for more to be unveiled at the CHI 2010 conference in Atlanta next month. [Thanks, Keith]
SweetSpotter keeps your music coming at the right angle, regardless of flailing
For years now, home theater and / or entertainment rigs have been built so that your sofa, recliner or aged bar stool was right in the sweet spot when it came to audio distribution. In short, you built your system around your seating arrangement. With the introduction of Nintendo's Wii, Sony's PlayStation Move and Microsoft's Project Natal, folks aren't staying put in the same place as often, and that -- friends -- has created a problem in search of a solution. The fine gurus over at TU Dresden believe that they have the answer, and even if it fails miserably (highly doubtful, mind you), who could really harsh on a product called the SweetSpotter? The software is designed to work in conjunction with your webcam (or console camera, in theory), and as the sensor tracks your movement in real time, the code "adaptively adjusts the sweet spot of your stereo play back system to your current listening position." In short, it results in "correct stereo phantom source localization independent of your listening position," and frankly, it just might change your life. The code itself can be downloaded for free down in the source link (it's open source, so pass it along while you're at it), and if you end up creating a plug-in to use this in your favorite gaming scenario, be sure to drop us a line about it.
Second Life third-party viewer policies get an update but still fail to do the job
Last week, the promised update of Linden Lab's Third-Party Viewer (TPV) policies crept out onto the Second Life Web-site with little fanfare. After the fuss caused by the tangle of legal incompatibilities, muddled terminology and ambiguous phrasing in the first version, the Lab said it would go back and address the problems, and get the policy document fixed. So, you'd think they'd have gotten it right this time around, right? We certainly did. We were wrong.
The Virtual Whirl: News of the Whirl
This week, in The Virtual Whirl, we're having our monthly roundup of news items. Things that got missed, things that didn't make the cut, things that got buried, and things that really should have gotten your attention anyway.
Google says Android should 'flourish' in China, effectively concedes a point
Whether for real or for show, Google tried to make the world believe it would use Android OS as a bargaining chip during the company's terse, slow negotiations with China. Now, the company has seemingly abandoned that option. During an educational webcast about the future of Google's mobile business, CFO Patrick Pichette told viewers that he expected the company's Android platform to do well in China despite all the recent threats and ultimatums in the country. "The Android platform is available to everybody," said Pichette, "and China is obviously another great market in which Android should flourish." Good to hear that Google and China are finally in accordance, right? Thing is, with China circumventing Android's default search engine, Google's stance against Chinese censorship of search depended on taking Android handsets hostage. But if the OS is indeed available to everybody, that's not going to happen. The mobile market might one day be dominated by Android, but if Google doesn't step up, mobile search will go to competitors more willing to play wallball with the Great Firewall of China.